Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Obama Wins Iowa!

Just kidding.

But also, not really. As Bowers points out, Obama leads McCain by more than 30% among voters who have already cast their ballots according to a SurveyUSA poll. That's 65% to 31%, among the 14% of likely voters who have voted. If this were taking place on election night, Iowa would probably be called for Obama.

Now, granted, this is just a poll, it isn't like we've got these votes in hand to count – particularly true, since any small number in a poll has a huge margin of error. And, granted, Obama has been pushing the early voting thing a lot more than McCain has, since Obama's leading so much in the polls right now and wants to lock that in.

But the fact is, a 2:1 deficit with 14% of the votes in is an incredible obstacle to overcome, and I'm inclined to think that there's just no way for McCain to pull off the sort of comeback that would even let him be competitive in the state. Maybe it doesn't mean that Obama's already won Iowa, but it's yet another enormous strategic problem for McCain (the main other one being that he has to win seven states to Obama's one, or possibly two). Furthermore, RCP has Obama up by 11.8%; Pollster, 11.4%, and trending upwards; and 538 gives him a 99% chance of a win.

PS: The other results from this poll are incredibly positive too. Obama leads in early voting in North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia, and by massive margins in New Mexico.